TARISTINblog

Well, what is there to say lately?

Surely something has happened in the 3 months since I posted last, right?

Well, truth be told, a lot has happened. Ive been doing a lot of school work, perhaps the most of any semester so far. Going out of my mind with it really. Been going to Newburgh for observations for school. The more I observe in schools, the less I feel its going to be difficult, but the more I go to classes to learn how to teach, the more they scare you into thinking it’s the most impossible job ever.
Truth be told it is harder than it is given credit for being.
Ive been growing increasingly frustrated with my courses. Theyre designed in such a way as to either indoctrinate or alienate the class. I certainly feel alienated. My technology class, which is supposed to teach how to integrate technology into classroom lessons, is an epic fail. The teacher has yet to show how to integrate anything, choosing instead to make us use archaic and laughable programs to make things that are of such a ridiculously poor quality and limited use as to be pointless for the classroom. Additionally, every time he tries to demonstrate a technology beyond PowerPoint presentations, he fails epicly.
And I mean, really? Do I need to be in that class? I coded my site by hand, built m computer myself, and am the one my teachers ask for help getting their technology working for them in the classroom. It is an insult to my intelligence to sit there and listen to his bollocks.
Schooling is almost over, though, and soon I can move onto the better life of student teaching, once I get over my anxieties about it and get into the actual habit of doing it.

On other notes, my addiction to Anarchy Online may be waning finally. The last several nights Ive logged in I have been so incredibly bored to the point of logging out within the hour. MMO’s are boring when they become Massively Singleplayer Online games.

In scaliedom, Ive been wanting to make more art; I completed a commission for Rioclaw, which I will shortly upload to my website’s gallery, which was completed on real paper, and colored with colored pencils! I totally enjoyed the precision and detail I was able to achieve with pencil over digital. My tablet just isnt accurate anymore, and the blurry art is getting me frustrated rather quickly.
I may possibly be open to more commissions. I know I have another due for Rio but will likely have to do that digitally somehow, because of the nature of it.

Ive been mulling over my single status a lot, too. And have an opportunity to perhaps change that, somewhat. But I am of two minds, still. A long distance relationship is difficult. But then so is being alone. I dont know what the future holds, but I worry about losing a friendship, or not being a good enough mate. I also worry too much because I spend more time worrying about it than being in such a situation! (Hey, it’s been about 4 years since Ive been in anything close to a relationship. Sad as that is, it’s true, and leaves me rather uneasy, and not prepared for being responsible for someone else’s happiness.) We’ll have to see how that goes, I guess.

I purchased the Windows 7 Student priced edition of Home Premium. It’s the Win Windows that Vista should have been (and I liked Vista!). Currently in the process of reinstalling things, still, after upgrading from the release candidate. Some things carried over a lot more smoothely than others (Sunbird, Im looking at you!)
Im still broke, because I had no job all summer. I still have my del Sol because no one can afford to buy it at a real price. And Im still here, sitting at my PC.

Really, I need to work on 2 more essays this weekend to be happy and not stress out, so I should probably run, but this has been a status update on the bluebupp’s life for now. A lot has been omitted, but you can always ask, me almost anything and get an answer with in a short time… As always, contact info on the main page’s about link.

See you all next time (All 2 of you who read this, if you still even do!)

Summer, that is. It is getting to where summer is almost over. What do I have to show for it? a bank account with 160.00 (100 of it not mine, but there to prevent the $15.00 monthly fee for having less than 100!), a car that runs excellently and looks good, but wont sell, for whatever reason (damn this economy!), and 2 new accounts for Anarchy Online that are/will be frozen comes the end of this month because I cannot pay for them, either. (And what a shame, I really liked the adventurer account!). Thanks, Funcom, for the free month codes! You kept my broke, scalie ass from boredom for 2 months!

For those of you that do not know, Anarchy Online is the longest running science fiction based MMORPG on the internet. Paid accounts cost money, of course, but there are free accounts. This game has one of the best skills systems I have every worked with, to the point where I cannot play other games because they feel so oversimplified and childish in comparison. Hopefully the graphics update that they are working on will be available shortly and the game can look as good as it deserves to.

Aaaanyways, that’s been a major timesink. But trying new things is always fun.

As far as the website goes, Ive added 18 more images, performed some layout optimizations, and added a new section, Collaborations, to the fray. Check out the Sketches section for a ton of new images (or 13 or so) and remember that I am offering commissions! A linearted pic for $5! What a steal! Ill have to put up a commissions section to show the pieces I have created for others.

When I sell my Honda Del Sol which is on Kijiji, as well as Craigslist , I want to buy a new tablet PC for my arting and then pay off the 860.00 my tuition went up, on top of what federal loans are paying for (thanks, government!) and then spend the rest on books.

Well, Im rambling, so I should wrap this up. Thanks for reading, still, and happy rest of summer to you all!

What a summer. No job, no money, no real worries… It was both nice and boring. Stress free and stress-filled. And theres still 2 months to go before school starts again.
My last year. 2 semesters remaining, in theory, and then masters degree lizard. How freaky is that?
Time to look for old friends and try not to lose touch with my newly graduated buddies who have once again dispersed about the state…

Jesu Christo it’s been ages since Ive posted anything here. School has really been kicking my ass hard. Ive had absolutely no time to myself in the last 5 months! Shee, I feel like if I take even the time to Fap off Im wasting time I should be spending on an essay!
Anyways, things are progressing along, and I have a total of 3 assignments, and 6 blog posts to finish and I am done for the semester! YAY! I bought a Honda Del Sol to screw around with, and man has that thing been a money pit, of my $7.5k that I had in February, Im down to almost 3k! Thats quite a bit.
I dont have a job, anymore. Im next in line for a position with the county, but so many people returned from last year that they have no room for me. THe boss woman swears though that if anyone leaves/gets fired I’m next. We’ll see how that goes. False hope is still hope eh? Our gov’t thinks so atleast. And it seems to work for most of America! Yay!

Anyways I really should be getting back to my essays. Need to reflect on my educational career thus far, which means I need to make up a bunch of teacher glorifying bullshit to stroke their egos. Im too tired for this. I need a year off! Heh.

Im still arting, and my website will be updated to reflect this shortly! Keep tuned! All one of you that read this! Heh, Ciao ciao.

Christmas time is always such a shitty time, it seems. Im convinced its New York.
A year ago, a week before Christmas, my Grandmother passed on. It made Christmas difficult. There is no joy when a loved one dies, no matter where you look for it. It is not to be found. This year, the day before Christmas, our dog, Sheba, came down with an insane fever. Christmas Eve, she was taken to a vet, who advised we should remove her ovaries. Dad thought the man was a con artist, as she was eating snow that had road salt in it, and her symptoms seemed like those of someone poisoned by the sodium and potassium chlorides. Christmas day, she was doing better, and even ate. The day after however she fell worse, and we took her to a different vet, who confirmed that she had a disease of the ovaries that causes them to inflame, and sometimes rupture. We were lucky they didnt. She had emergency surgery that saved her life, but the holiday was tense.
Then, sadly, just days before new years, the son of friends of the family was struck and killed by a van on Long Island, where he lived. The guy driving was a volunteer firefighter, so of course he got no ticket, no blame whatsoever. The boy was 18 years old, and his life ended in a day. He had severe head trauma. His parents are devastated, as they should and would be. It was truly a sad sad thing.
I cannot imagine the grief one must feel when they have to bury their child.
That night, too, was my cousin’s sweet sixteen. She looked very pretty in her dress, and I think that that night was the most she had ever spoken with me. Odd how Ive known her since she was born, but she was always so shy she would never speak to me.
We didnt get home until 3am that night. I came home and found that my freshly installed Thermaltake liquid cooling kit had failed. Yep. After being installed for only about 50 hours, the pump leaked into itself and shorted out. The voltage shock told the PSU to shut down. My Motherboard, earlier that day had failed to update its BIOS correctly, and when it shorted out and powered down, was left without a brain.
Long story short, my PC died while I was at a funeral.
But from destruction comes creation. Expensively of course. I’ve purchased a new motherboard and processor, ram, heatsink and PSU. Building a new Intel Core i7 system using the 920 Nehalem chip. The board Im buying is from eVGA. Ive been reading a lot, and theirs seem to be the best boards. However they are nVidia fanboys at eVGA. They had no boards that suported ATi’s CrossfireX platform. Since I have a 3870, and like that I can pay a lot less money for ATi cards than I can for nVidias and get really good performance, this had always been a point of apprehension. Fortunately, the new i7’s use the new Intel X58 chipset, which natively supports both SLi and CrossfireX. I was very happy to read that. It helped me decide. Even though I am spending nearly a grand on this new setup, it should be futureproof for atleast 3 new technology cycles.
Lessons learned:

• Holidays are a time where bad things always seem to happen.
• Good people have bad things happen to them far too often.
• Life is so very random. Theres no order, no accountability, no method to who lives and who dies, or why.
• That is scary.
• Do not buy Thermaltake for liquid cooling purposes, unless you need to have an excuse to upgrade your current hardware.
• Liquid cooling is a great thing, it can keep your system very cool, and do it without making nearly any noise. But dont expect to have a decent system (even just a CPU loop) for under 200.00 US. If you do get something for less, expect it to fail, hard, and fast.